BOOKS: THE DEATH OF RIGHT AND WRONG: Exposing the Left's Assault on Our Culture and Values

by Bill Muehlenberg

News Weekly, November 5, 2005

Time to get angry

THE DEATH OF RIGHT AND WRONG:Exposing the Left's Assault on Our Culture and Valuesby Tammy Bruce.New York: Three Rivers PressPaperback RRP: $24.95

Tammy Bruce (The New Thought Police) is angry. And judging by the contents of this book, she has a right to be. She is angry at the damage and destruction being wrought on individuals and societies in the name of moral relativism. And a major source of this tsunami of immorality and amorality, according to Bruce, comes from the radical Left.

What makes this book unique, however, is that it is not just the usual suspects making the charges of moral decay. The author is no right-wing religious patriarchal maniac. She is pretty nearly the opposite: a liberal, secular feminist and lesbian who is pro-choice. And she had been a card-carrying member of the radical Left for many years, before defecting to a more sensible and sober position.

Appalled

For this reason, if for no other, this book is worth a read. And it will certainly hold your attention. I read it in an evening. She argues that you do not have to be religious to be appalled at what has been taking place for the past few decades.

Her book contains a chilling look at the way radical secularist and leftist values have driven out other values, and have left a trail of destruction in their wake. She looks at how a small group of people who are intent on imposing their destructive agenda on the rest of society are succeeding at a rapid pace.

The real enemy here is the pernicious notion of moral relativism, the notion that at heart there are absolutely no rights and no wrongs, and the only real wrong is if someone suggests there are rights and wrongs. Says Bruce, the radical Left does not want to push the boundaries of right and wrong, but wants to get rid of those boundaries altogether.

The pathological narcissism of the loony Left harms everyone, as individual traumas and disorders are foisted upon the rest of society.

"The Left is led by a cadre of damaged and powerful individuals," says Bruce, "who have been condemned by their own politics never to escape their victimhood".

With her insider's perspective, she documents how feminists, radical black activists, homosexual advocates and other Leftist organisations are intent on destroying personal responsibility, morality and decency in the name of self-gratification and nihilism.

Now, these may seem like just so many fightin' words. But she provides detailed, documented examples of this destruction. She offers one gruesome example after another of how this is taking place.

The Left's attack on Christianity is a major case in point. That is because the church is the main bulwark of moral certitude, something the moral relativists just cannot stand. Even though the author is not a believer, she can see clearly the concentrated attack on faith which the Left is engaged in.

This can take the form of so-called works of art like "Piss Christ", which denigrate the faith, or legislation passed to silence believers from expressing their faith in public.

It can mean Political Correctness running amok, with the banning of Christmas carols or passing hate-crime legislation which silences Christian preachers.

There are other targets in Bruce's sights. Activist judges and an amoral court system that allow rapists and murderers to virtually walk away scot-free is another topic she highlights. Also, the radical push by homosexual lobbyists to force their lifestyle on the rest of society is hammered by Bruce.

This is all the more incredible because she herself is a practising lesbian. But she is not afraid to call a spade a spade, and denounce homosexual activists who are quite happy to target our children.

Thus she claims that the extremists in the homosexual movement are seeking the complete acceptance of "the depraved, the damaged, and the malignantly narcissistic".

Targeting children

She is worth quoting at length:

"The radicals in control of the gay establishment want children in their world of moral decay, lack of self-restraint, and moral relativism. Why? How better to truly belong to the majority (when you're really on the fringe) than by taking possession of the next generation?

"By targeting children, you can start indoctrinating the next generation with the false construct that gay people deserve special treatment and special laws. How else can the gay establishment actually get society to believe, borrowing from George Orwell, that gay people are indeed more equal than others?

"Of course, the only way to get that idea accepted is to condition people into accepting nihilism that forbids morality and judgment."

Indeed, this is what really gets Bruce angry: the way children are especially being targeted by the radicals on the Left.

This comes in many forms. Explicit sex education for the youngest of children is one example. The attack on the Boy Scouts for not taking homosexual scout-masters is another. So too is the push to normalise child-adult sex, with many respected academics and others championing the cause.

In much of this push to value-neutral activity, there is first a push to value-neutral language. That is, verbal engineering precedes social engineering. Thus radical homosexual magazines pushing paedophilia speak of "intergenerational sex" instead - as if the evil of child sexual abuse is mitigated by name-changing.

Bruce believes the attempt to sexualise our children is one of the greatest evils that the radical Left is involved in. She examines in detail how the sex education industry and many academics are waging war on our children. The examples she provides will - or should - make your blood boil. It did mine. And it certainly has her blood pressure up.

Moral indignation

Of course, all this moral indignation will make no sense to the moral relativists. If there is no right and wrong, then there is nothing to get upset about. If everything is permissible, then how can anyone get angry and make moral judgments or condemnation?

And that is exactly why Bruce is right to target the moral relativists. They not only seek to justify every evil action, but strip from us the very ability to say, "No, this is wrong".

They talk about freedom and tolerance, but what they really want is the freedom to do whatever they want and for the rest of us to just tolerate it.

But this can never be. As long as there is real evil in the world, there will be moral disgust against it.

Bruce documents a lot of this evil in gory detail. And she is angry in the process. But if it gets us angry and motivates us to stand up for what is right, then that anger has served a good purpose. It seems that a world that has lost its moral radar needs a lot more of this kind of anger. May it long continue.